El Rancho in South Texas: Continuity and Change from 1750

Walter Prescott Webb and other historians have long recognized South Texas as the cradle of the cattle industry in the United States. While missions and presidios were the primary Spanish frontier institutions in the settlement of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and central and east Texas, the private cattle ranch was the institution used to settle South Texas. As it had been in Spain and later in Mexico, the private cattle ranch was the cutting edge of the Spanish frontera. This book, which accompanies a major traveling exhibit funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Meadows Foundation, examines the Spanish and Mexican roots of the ranch which came to the South Texas region as early as the 1730s. This work traces the evolution of the ranch in South Texas through Spanish Exploration and Settlement of Texas; The Ranch: A Spanish Institution; The Ranch in Mexico; The Ranch in South Texas; Two Modern Ranches.